This holiday season, little girls all around the world were presented with pink gift boxes filled with costumes and plastic jewelry all designed to fulfill their every wish and dream to be a Princess.

And it’s reinforced with various “Princess” clothing, “Daddy’s little princess” bumper stickers, and more. Raising a girl to be self-confident in herself is one thing; to raise her to believe that being a princess is the end-all goal is another, which is why some people tend to take a negative view of the continual Princess merchandising deluge found in toy aisles everywhere.

Even so, there have been many variations on the classic Disney Princess stereotype over the years, whether it be COSPLAY, PHOTOGRAPHY, or FICTIONALIZED CONTINUATIONS of the classic stories, such as the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by author Anne Rice.

But with all the gender-endoctrination of princess-dom, there can be one way to make the life of a Disney Princess not seem as glamorous as it could be:

If Web Watch were to mention the name Randy Pausch to you, chances are you wouldn’t know who we were talking about off the top of your head.

But if we were to mention that Randy was the Carnegie-Mellon professor who wrote the book The Last Lecture, then maybe that would help ring a bell for you. If you haven’t taken the time to read the book or watch the phenomenal documentary on The Last Lecture, then Web Watch strongly encourages you to stop whatever you’re doing right now and do so.

Going to Walt Disney World can seem, to some, to be a form of modern-day warfare, with every tourist working hard to achieve the ultimate prize of a Relaxing Family Vacation (five days of fun crammed into three)!

A few months back, Web Watch told you about how Hemingway chose to write: be as concise as possible, don’t say in six words what you say in five.

Storytelling – whether it be written or verbal, for fun or for profit – is not something that comes naturally to everyone. It’s another reason why public speaking can be so difficult, as well. People naturally like to wander in their conversations, and becoming laser-focused on what you’re trying to say is a skillset that not everyone has.

Why take 20 minutes to tell a story when you can say the same thing in five minutes? You can always expand on what you’re talking about, especially as part of a continued conversation. But don’t give everything away on your own – your audience will become quickly bored.

They’re marketing their protest with Apple and Google phones, using Facebook and Twitter over cellular networks or purloined free WiFi connections that are setup/maintained/paid for by other corporations.

A protest is fine, and bringing attention to companies’ misdeeds is powerful — but don’t complain about how all businesses are bad if you have to rely on them in order to handle your protest in the first place.

Disneyland and Walt Disney World are often referred to as the “Happiest Places on Earth”.

And for good reason.

But there is an underbelly that seldom sees the light of day. And it proves that even with the fantasy worlds that Walt built, sometimes people crack a bit under the pressure to always have a good time and escape.

Perhaps there’s a reason that alcohol is hard to find at the Magic Kingdom (unless, of course, you know where to look).

Let’s take a look at how Disney’s professional security teams deal with unruly, and occasionally violent, guests:

Jirka Väätäinen is a Finnish design student at Bournemouth, and he wants to be very clear that his name is pronounced “Yirka”, not “Jerk-a”.

Web Watch has no reason to quibble with him on this, as he’s doing some phenomenal work on RE-IMAGINING DISNEY PRINCESSES as if they were real-life people.

Sure, we’ve seen some other examples of this with live models, but Jirka is taking a slightly different approach on this with his photo-realistic, manipulations that are designed to showcase what the Disney Princess would look like as an actual person.

One question that Web Watch hears a lot from our friends is “Why do some businesses use the term THE BIG GAME or PIGSKIN PARTY, while others use the term SUPER BOWL in their promotional material?” We’ve noticed this ourselves, and are often amused at the lengths some companies go to in associating themselves as being a part of the Professional Football Championship Game without actually mentioning any of the NFL’s trademarks.

Web Watch is not a lawyer, nor are we involved/affiliated with the Super Bowl, the NFL, and its various properties – but we can certainly share some of the things that we’ve learned over the years. Take the following as helpful suggestions, but if you are planning on using any of the NFL’s trademarks yourself – you may want to check with your own legal department and/or followup with the NFL themselves for your own DOs and DONTs list. Continue reading WHEN CAN WE USE THE PHRASE “SUPER BOWL”? AND OTHER SUPER LEGALITIES YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF→